McDonalds Rap Video

Yesteryday afternoon, I took some of my crew out for a drink after work, it was officially disguissed as a “meeting.” I made the crude comment that our waitress sounded like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs and to my suprise, one of the girls had no idea what that meant. She had never seen Silence of the Lambs! So, I went on over to IMDB to send her a trailer to the film so she could “hear” what bill sounded like but the trailer doesn’t have Buffalo Bill. I went on over to YouTube and of course, they don’t have any copyrighted material there now that its GoogTube…but look what I found.

These guys Rock…

After clicking around a bunch of parody’s of Silence of the Lambs on YouTube I decided to send her the IMDB trailer and recomended her to watch the movie. I think you need to watch the entire flick to really take in how creepy that character was.

My sister and her family are currently living in Ethiopia. She has an awesome husband and three beautiful kids (two boys and a girl). I get these great emails from them fairly regularly discussing their adventures as a family, as parents and as young kids growing up in Ethiopia.

Recently, two of them went on a trip to Dubai for some fairly routine medical testing and sent me an email expressing how amazing Dubai was. Now, if you know my sister, you know she wasn’t caught up in the consumerism of the whole deal, but purely amazed at the engineering and wealth around a city smack dab in the middle of unsettled nations in the Middle East.

Here is an excerpt from her letter to me, and for the kids, cause hopefully they will go to this page and read this entry, I am going to post pictures of some of the amazing structures the witnessed from the ground.

She wrote:What an interesting place–although it is set on the Gulf in and amidst nations which have difficulty”, it is a sea of “westernized” consumption. I have NEVER in my life seen anything quite like it–a beautiful skyline on a fine sand shoreline–yet more traffic and fine cars than I have ever seen. The population is roughly 20% Emiratee, and the rest are immigrant. It’s insane how much wealth exists. They are building the world’s tallest building, nearby one of the supermalls with an indoor ski slope (which I saw and gawked at mostly), as well as the 7 star hotel (whose name I can’t pronounce but is Al something), which sits out on the Gulf in the water, designed in the shape of a sailboat. Apparently, there are two stories of “underwater” rooms and each room has its own butler, etc. There are a minimum of 8 supermalls in Dubai itself with oil money bringing in names like, Saks etc. There are even a series of islands that have been built offshore in crazy shapes, like Palm trees, where you can buy your own island. . . Wow, overwhelming. Even a visit to the grocery store was a bit overwhelming after leaving our market selection of veggies in Bahir Dar. The types of clothing worn were amazing, and beautiful, many representing both different countries and religions (lots of women in full black garb–burqas, some across the whole face with a veil over the eyes, some with just a head scarf. The men varied in their dress from extreme western to full head to toe white pants and dress, with checkered head cloths, etc. Very odd to see the women trailing behind the men (several wives often to one man).

The Hotel you couldnt pronounce is called “Burj Al Arab”…here is the picture as well as pictures of The World, Palm Jebel and the Ski Resort so you can show everyone that wasn’t there what you guys saw!.

Picture of Burj Al Arab

This building, whose name literally translates to “Tower of the Arabs” and boasts being the tallest building in the world that is used exclusively as a hotel. Construction of this hotel began in 1994 and took 5 years to build finishing its construction in 1999. The hotel stands over 900 feet tall. The architect of this “symbol” was WS Atkins PLC.

Picture of Palm Jebel

This area is currently being developed and upon completion will be one of the worlds 3 largest artificial islands. It was a project created to help with Dubai’s growing tourist industry that will take 100’s of millions of cubic meters of rock and sand to complete. There is still room for development on these islands…

Picture of The World in Dubai

The world is large group of islands that from above will appear to be shaped like the world. It will consist, upon completion in 2008, of over 250 small islands for sale to private investors ranging in size from 5-20 acres each.

Picture of the Indoor Ski Slope

Picture of lift line at the Dubai Ski Area

This Ski area smack dab in the middle of the desert is in the Dubai Emerates Mall. It is currently the worlds largest indoor ski slope measuring 1200 feet long (400 meters) using upwards of 600 tons of snow!

Alright kids, enough of the geography and engineering lesson for the day…I hope you all enjoyed all this being in one spot. These really are amazing…

First off, last night was by far the coldest night in San Diego since the turn of the century. Maybe since last winter, but it was so cold it must have broken records. The low last night was 43 degree’s…come on! I know you, and you don’t think 43 degrees when you think of southern california, you think of convertable porches and lamborghini’s…I think about that David Lee Roth video, Girls Girls Girls…and all those chics had bikinis on so it couldn’t have been 43 degrees(i am a twisted result of a childhood in the 80’s)!

Anyway, it was so cold last night it drove the bugs into our house (although our house has no heat so I don’t know what they were thinking). I woke up looking for a hoody but first noticed that summer was attacked by a potato bug once again! Now, she sleeps in much later than I do so she didn’t tell me personally, but I woke up to this note in the hallway…

Captured Potato Bug

Luckily for all of us, she survived the attach. I imagine she was doing dishes and whipped this bowl over into the hallway like a fearless ninja capturing the vicious potatoe bug…then left the carnage for me to dispose of.

He’s definately still alive, I here him calling in back up..little guys’ probably cold in there…..

Summer and I were super hungry the other night and wanted to make something that would be really quick. I threw together a healthy meal that took 25 minutes with prep time and almost no clean up. Look past the picture for the simple recipe.

Grilled Shrimp and Vegatable Kabobswith rice and beans

Ingredients for Lowfat Shrimp and Vegetable Kabobs:

Trader Joes Peel Uncooked Tail on Frozen Shrimp

Onions

Tomatoes

Red Bell Peppers

Seasame Seeds

Microwavable Minute Rice

Canned Whole Balack Beans

Wooden Spears

Newmans Own Lowfat Sesame Seed Dressing

Gas Grill

Directions:

Chop the onions and bell peppers the same size squares

Pierce the Cherry tomatoes alternately with the onions and bell peppers

Pierce the Shrimp onto the kabobs don’t crunch them tight, they need room to cook)

Pour Seasame Seed Dressing all over the shrimp

Pour Seasame Seed Dressing all over the veggies

Add to hot grill (on high)

Should be ready after cooking for under 8 minutes

Microwave Beans and Rice for two minutes togehter

Not exactly a gourmet meal, but it sure turns out great for such a cheap, quick low fat meal meal. We were stoked. As you can see from the picture, we ate it family style off or my old bamboo cutting board with a “party size” glass of red wine (probably a cabernet).